


Drifting

by smjit



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, Freeform, i dont have anything against sandra bullock, more drifting through memories, no solid ending, no storyline, read authors note for an explanation, unrequited ymir-historia love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:43:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8891179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smjit/pseuds/smjit
Summary: Alright so.... I wrote this a little over 13 months ago as part of a much larger fic, hence the first person perspective *cringe*. I just rediscovered it, and it is never going to be finished because of life and shifting motivations but I wanted it up somewhere. I might add more sections to this later on if I decide anything else is worth posting, but that is why this feels so incomplete. Because it is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so.... I wrote this a little over 13 months ago as part of a much larger fic, hence the first person perspective *cringe*. I just rediscovered it, and it is never going to be finished because of life and shifting motivations but I wanted it up somewhere. I might add more sections to this later on if I decide anything else is worth posting, but that is why this feels so incomplete. Because it is.

Mikasa is so beautiful and so… She describes herself as broken, but I refuse to believe that. The word I would use is so far removed from her own perspective that I have never told her what it was.

Resilient, or fierce.

A survivor.

She has this atmosphere about her I have only ever seen occasionally in my life, exuding calmness and clarity. And hope too.

Whenever I wander the streets, exercising or on my way to get food, she appears.

Sometimes when I see her she has headphones in, but she always pops one out to talk or listen, or gives me one and we sit and listen to Portishead and Blonde Redhead and Orion Rigel Dommisse and I can’t help but feel that it fits her perfectly. Once, a Rage against the Machine song came on and she straight up and left, gently removed the bud she had given to me and just walked away. Must be a trigger or something.

Sometimes when I see her though she has massive headphones on, the ones Sasha always calls ‘doof doofs’, and when that is the case we sit in silence for a while until she feels alright to take them off. Every time she wears those she is quieter than usual, and I make most of the stilted conversation we usually share.

Once she had a stack of papers with her and we went out to the docks and methodically shredded them, dropping the torn fragments into the water. Some of them were blank but some had names on, faces. I realised pretty quickly they were missing persons who had been found. The paper shreds sort of chilled on the surface of the water, some stuck to the edges of the concrete, most were washed away to sea.

I think Mikasa both envies and despises those people. The shredding was erasing the fact that they had ever been gone, left their families like that, but also removing the reminder that she could be one of them. Our city is small and the crime rate is low, but it is big enough people go missing all the time, and it isn’t always by choice.

Most of the time we just sit, but sometimes we walk too. At one point we walked so far out of town we had to catch a train back in, and the train driver didn’t even charge her. Sometimes I wonder if she is a celebrity I have just never seen.

That might explain why she seems to like me, I don’t know shit about movies or shows or whatever.

One very clear day I am out jogging and she rides past me in a tiny skiff, motions me to get in, and probably instantly regrets it when I blow chunks overboard for most of the journey.

One very rainy day we go to a movie, something about people in love and then one of them dies and the friend admits their eternal love and in the end no one is happy.

Mikasa doesn’t get charged and she cries at the end, silently, but with gentle snuffles because neither of us brought tissues.

When we leave she holds my hand, no interlacing of digits, just palms clinging loosely together. Her fingers are cool and thin, like frozen twigs wrapped in gauze, and for some reason that thought makes me cry and she just looks at me like I am the crazy one when tears drip off my chin.

Maybe I am crazy.

The tears weren’t accompanied by sadness, but then they never are.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a robot, or nobody else has emotions either and everyone is working together to create this mass illusion. I voice this to Mikasa and her fingers tighten on mine fractionally.

Maybe she is a ghost and only I can see her. That would explain all the free stuff, I mean what the hell? Even the street vendors give her things.

She gets a haircut one day, waist length ebony silk suddenly jaw length. It suits her better but she brushes aside any compliments I can make before they are even fully articulated.

One night at the quay I tell her about Historia.

How her hair is golden spider webs, clinging to itself and so silky I long to wrap my fingers in it and get caught, roll and twist until I vanish, safe, hidden.

How sometimes she just looks empty, like she moved out when she was a teenager and no new personality ever took her place, never refilled her head with bookshelves and pictures and pillows and other homey stuff. How I try to hide my memories of that look in other people’s eyes, and how it never works.

How when she talks I am torn between watching her and filling my head with her voice because she is so overwhelming I can’t possibly focus on more than one sense without losing part of it and I need all of her, everything at once.

How when we are alone it is all I can do to look her in the eyes and just _ache_ , because I have never wanted anyone as much I wanted her and I am just not worth it.

Mikasa smiles when I finally go silent.

She kisses the corner of my mouth and lets go of my fingers (hand-holding has become a regular thing for us since the movie, and no matter how long we sit, intertwined from the wrists out, her temperature never seems to change), removes her scarf, dives into the dark water from where we are sitting and doesn’t resurface.

It is without hesitation I stand to follow her, but I have to remove my jeans and tank before getting into the water else drown, it is so cold and deep and it isn’t that I dislike swimming, but it doesn’t happen enough for me to be good at it.

Mikasa looks like a seal, having stripped as well, silvery clear skin glowing in the light and catching on her greying singlet and panties, shadows dramatic under the moon.

We swim around for a while until my teeth begin to chatter so hard I can’t keep the seawater out and I pull myself back up the ladder onto shore, offering a hand to Mikasa when her upturned face appears next to the dense hair on my legs and pulling her out with barely a struggle. She is obviously pretty dense with muscle, because someone so slight shouldn’t weigh so much.

She goes to wring her hair out and her hands spin off wildly into air when she reaches the end, shock piercing her features for a split second before the blank mask is back in place.

I once had long hair too, so I know how she feels. When I was a little girl it went most of the ways down my back, enough that when I was naked and I shifted my head it would stroke between my shoulder blades with a soft whisper, and when I had a ponytail it would swing violently whenever I ran.

After my head shave, whenever I woke up early and didn’t have time to look in the mirror I would almost brain myself trying to brush what wasn’t there. The reverse works though as well, now that it is longer I sometimes go days without untangling it. Why won’t anyone hire me again?

The concrete is hard against my ass, and I can tell I will have pebbly imprints on the back of my thighs the whole way home. The tableau is too beautiful to move though, makes up for the shivering twice over.

A motion next to me alerts me to Mikasa’s retying her scarf.

She speaks, breaking the silence we have inhabited since the dive.

“You are worth it.”

At first I don’t know what she is talking about, then I remember. I say nothing. She continues on as if I wasn’t meant to.

“No one ever thinks they are, though.” Sad, creeping voice from somewhere in her head I can’t see.

“Are you speaking from experience?”

She shakes her head, droplets let loose and flicking my shoulders and the pavement around us with tiny spots.

“What I am has nothing to do with what I am worth, whatever that may be. That isn’t quantifiable anyway.”

Her accent is firmly hidden today. It took me a while to realize she wasn’t a native English speaker because when she tries her accent flawlessly blends in with my own.

“I have two siblings,” she starts, and I sit to attention casually. She has never spoken about her family before. “Very different. One doesn’t think they are worthwhile in their own true self, and one is trying to find their worth in everybody else.”

“That is…. Poetic.” And confusing as shit.

“I don’t think people are worth anything except themselves.”

“An eye for an eye, or some shit?”

She nods. “But only your own eye.”

“What ‘bout left for right, is that okay?”

She shoves me with her shoulder, smiling faintly. From what I know of her this is the equivalent of laughing uncontrollably. I try not to act too smug.

The moon is a fat crescent tonight, the streetlamps our main source of light when we are on street level. When we were in the water we could see the stars but up here we are blinded by civilization.

By now I have dried off enough to pull my jeans back on so I do, the rough fabric catching on my slightly damp, goose pimpled legs, but making it up okay. My tank is wetter from my own drippings, being too close to where I was sitting, and now it has a darkened patch just large enough to be uncomfortable.

Mikasa is less fortunate, having stripped after she got into the water. Luckily she was wearing a dress, so it pulls over her head easily enough and hangs, a sheet in the rain on her compact frame.

“What was with the dip anyways,” I ask once we are less naked. I mean I am still not wearing a bra and it is cold. Nips on _point_.

“Cold helps one to think.” She replies faintly. “It evens out all the spaces in your brain.”

“I dunno, all I was thinking is ‘shit shit shit it’s fucking freezing’.”

“Yes, but you were having irrational thoughts, and it removed those, didn’t it?”

I nod, trying very hard to keep my mind clear. There’s that saying about the elephant though, and it is difficult to keep them at bay. Somehow I manage.

She swings her legs out from the edge, jumping up onto her toes in a perfect arc. I am impressed but manage to hide it, performing a suitably cool side swing to the top, stretching nonchalantly at the top of my stand.

“Time to go back?” I ask. “I am freezing.”

She nods, shaking her hair gracefully to remove excess drips.

“Just remember, alright? No person is worth another person. You are only worth yourself.”

I nod, but she must sense my confusion as she grips my fingers gently for a moment and pokes my chest softly. I say softly but her fingers are freezing iron and I am probably going to bruise. Remember my state of bralessness before you judge me, these things are sensitive to pain when they are cold.

“When things are supposed to happen they do. Do not stress about that which is out of your control.”

I smile uneasily.

“Sometimes you read like a horoscope you know.”

She smiles enigmatically.

“Well my wisdom applies to everybody, to some degree, so maybe you are right.”

That could be sarcasm. If it is it is the first time I have ever heard her use it, and frankly, it is a little disquieting.

She waves, fingers pale and washed out in the streetlamp, and walks away. I don’t know where she lives, because no matter where we are, whenever we say goodbye she walks in the opposite direction. Definitely a ghost.

I grip the mace in my pocket and start back towards the flat.

 

***

 

Jean is still awake when I return, and he raises his eyebrows questioningly from his position on the couch. The light from the shitty television splays across his face, making him appear kinda sickly and highlighting his regrowth.

“Where were you?” he asks, voice gravelly.

I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively and he actually blushes.

“What are you watching?” Successfully and masterfully changing the subject, I saunter into the lounge and lean against the kitchen door frame.

He mumbles and I watch the movie for a while.

“Is this Miss Congeniality?”

He nods and I cackle quietly.

“That explains why you waited until the asscrack of dawn to watch it, what's everyone else doing?”

“Sleeping, doofus. Eren is here, Sasha is at Connie’s.”

“Where is Marco tonight?”

“His parent’s, I assumed you were there too until you showed up lookin all smug.”

I slouch against the door frame, striking a nonchalantly cool pose.

“You know me. It’s their anniversary isn’t it… Maybe I’ll text ‘em or something.”

Jean goes quiet for a second and I see he has been distracted by the movie again.

Wordlessly I join him on the other end of the couch, wrapping myself up in one of the quilts and we finish the movie together.

I hate Sandra Bullock. No reason why, just don’t like her face.

Jean is very quiet, and I know he has watched this movie before by the way he mouths every couple of lines, so something must be up. By the time the credits are rolling I have decided I don’t care. Doesn’t mean I can’t act like I do though.

“You okay there buddy?” I ask disinterestedly.

He nods, shakes, nods again.

“Yes? I think Marco is mad at me. I’ve had a few commissions recently that are taking all my time and I haven’t been seeing him very often.”

I let my head fall onto his shoulder with a solid thwack.

“Reject the next few commissions.”

He sighs.

“Stop sleeping.”

He groans.

“Quit your job.”

He whines.

“Move in with Marco.”

I fall face first onto the couch as he stands abruptly.

“Did I do good?” I ask blearily. The movie took more out of me than I thought. Fucking Sandra Bullock.

Jean paces around the lounge, rubbing his hands through his hair, sticking it up in stupid little tufts. He has a cowlick in his fringe that seems to only emerge after a certain time of night and it is poking straight up, despite his busy fingers.

“I think he wants me to move in with him.” He sounds panicked, so I take pity on him.

“Why would you say that?” I offer gently.

“He has been dropping all these hints that kinda make sense now, and he keeps asking if I want a drawer at his place, and discussing how expensive renting on his own is, and oh my god he definitely wants me to move in.”

“So do it.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready? What if he can’t stand all my canvases? Or he doesn’t like what I cook?”

He sounds legitimately worried, which isn’t surprising considering the number of canvases in his room and how shitty meals are on his night.

“Doesn’t he have a two bedroom place? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind letting you set up a studio in there. Also your omelets are pretty passable. Maybe you are overreacting and taking all this the wrong way. Wait for him to come back and just talk to him.”

Jean switches off the television and continues pacing in the now completely darkened room. I sigh, over this entire situation.

“If you aren’t going to say anything or turn a light on I am going to bed. You should probably do that also. It is fuck-knows o’clock and nothing makes sense.”

Using my impressive knowledge of the house I blindly stumble into the hallway and flick on my light, waving at Jean who has followed me.

“Are you wet?” He asks belatedly, but I merely shut the door in his face. Dude doesn’t deserve to know my nighttime secrets.

Mikasa is one of mine.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So the original fic was going to be a Yumikuri with a hint of Jeanmarco and Ymir's life trying to be less of a fuckup. I managed to get, like, 50k from the looks of it? It had a long way to go, but it was kind of cool to find it again. idk. here you go, internet.


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